No Slithereen May Fail
by ShipsPassInTheNight
Summary: His anger is fiercer than it has ever been (even in the heat of battle) when he returns to their quarters in the Guard barracks, but it disappears the moment he pushes the door open (it is unlocked) and catches sight of her. In its place comes despair. Slardar/Naga, AU.
1. Victory (Siren)

VICTORY

The Vault's carved doors shudder under an external impact, sending tremors through the water. Her Guard (at less than half its original strength) assumes battle positions; tightly packed squads, bristling with spears, spread out around the entrance in a rough double-layered net.

There is no time for fear or doubt – she knows her duty. It matters not that the levianths outnumber her force ten to one. She will not allow them to take anything from her city.

_They will not leave with slaves, _she vows to herself. _They will not leave with treasure. They will leave with nothing; not even their lives. _Her enchanted blades hum in anticipation; they have not tasted blood in weeks. Soon, she knows, they will be drowning in the stuff.

She calls out to her Guard: "Remember your training! Reap a bloody harvest, then retreat behind your fellows. Let the enemy come to you, and stain every inch of their advance with their blood." They nod determinedly.

"Trust in each other," she says. "We are the Slithereen Guard, and we will not fail."

There is silence for a moment, then the barricades give way with a crash and the levianths pour through the door.

~~a~~

_The battle is going well,_ she thinks a short while later, cutting down a pair of levianths and darting away from the reprisal of their fellows. _They have forced us back from the doors, but we have traded half an empty hall for five score of their warriors._

Her fighting instincts take over, leaving her conscious mind free to strategize, and she nudges her berserker-self toward another knot of enemies – a flick of her tail brings her in close, and she tears through them like sharks through a shoal. Thick blood drags at her scales, but it hardly slows her down. Five more bodies sink slowly to the ground as she disengages.

Nearby, a squad of her fellows rushes to the attack, smooth spearheads puncturing armor and flesh with equal ease. They fall back as the levianths charge in a vain attempt to pin them down; the backup squad takes advantage of the enemy's thwarted momentum to dart in and claim a few more lives.

_Will they run out of bodies, or will we run out of space?_ She wonders. Weaving through the fray, she leaves a trail of twitching corpses in her wake. A few of her comrades (the slow or the unlucky) fall, snagged on the retreat by primitive hooks or barbed pikes, and the levianths roar in exultation.

_Morale is becoming a problem_. _I have to break the enemy._ She looks to the center of the enemy formation, where the bodies are pressed the tightest. _There!_

A tattered (almost tentacular) black standard flutters slowly in the current, hoisted aloft by a knot of heavily armed and armored levianths. She grits her teeth – those pledged to the Dark Banner are granted supernatural strength and endurance by their abyssal master, Maelrawn._ It matters not. If I can get in close, where they cannot bring their numbers to bear…_

One of the standard-bearers shouts a warning when he sees her coming. He is far too late; she is already among them, twisting and stabbing and slashing. _They are too used to seeing foes break and flee before their might, _she thinks, grinning madly._ But even the mightiest arm in the world cannot wound me if I sever it first._ Her armored tail flickers out in a deadly arc, its blades lopping off heads and limbs. Clouds of blood conceal her movements and break her opponents' coordination, and she takes full advantage of their confusion to snatch the enemy standard.

A howl of dismay rises from the massed levianths as she emerges from their ranks with the banner, ripping shreds of soft, black cloth – _is this_ _cloth? _– from the pole. Dark slime sticks to her fingers like coagulating blood, and she begins hacking at the writhing black material with her blade as she heads for the back of the hall. The levianths ignore her forces, instead charging as one to prevent their standard from being desecrated any further, and her Guard takes advantage of their single-minded focus to fall on them from behind._ Victory is at hand, _she thinks. _In the end their numbers meant nothing._

The last scrap of tough leather falls from the standard, and she raises her tail to snap the pole in half. A black-clad figure at the heart of the enemy formation staggers to its feet and points a bleeding palm at her. Clouded with blood, the water around its hand begins to warp and shimmer, and for a moment she can feel

_The veil is tearing; The Lord of Dead Waters awakes–_

She instinctively flings herself to one side as the water tears itself open

_and Maelrawn the Abyssal reaches for her, one huge limb lashing out through the wound in the world–_

~~a~~

An eternity later, she opens her eyes.

Her cheek rests against cold stone. Her Guard's tails flash before her eyes, packed too closely for to fight effectively. _What are you doing? _She wonders, shaking her head sluggishly. _Stick to the plan. If you don't spread out, you'll be overwhelmed by sheer numbers._

As she looks on, one of her Guards falls, a wicked hook embedded in her eye. Another is impaled in the stomach by a barbed pike and hauled wriggling into the mass of levianths surrounding them.

_Gods below. _Clarity returns to her in a rush. _They're _protecting _me._

Instantly, another thought: _If this keeps up, we're all going to die._

She springs up and rejoins the fight, driving her point through the groin of an unlucky levianth and dragging the blade upwards. Flesh and crude armor part with little resistance, and he (or she? It doesn't matter, she will _kill them all_) grasps at unfurling intestines in an attempt to keep them in. She finishes it off and moves on to the next, slamming her tail through its skull and whipping its corpse into its fellows on either side. None of them gets up.

_Their commander did this. I have to reach him before he strikes again._ She parries an oncoming blow, follows up to divest her assailant of three limbs, then turns to bury her blades in another belly. _One or a thousand; it matters not, _something dark inside her hisses as she tears open another sack of flesh and blood and bone._ If they keep coming, I'LL KEEP KILLING._

Someone is crying "To me" again and again as she slaughters her way through the throng. Then the rallying call stops as she snakes under a polearm to rip a throat out with her teeth, and she realizes the voice is hers. She spits out a bloody lump of cartilage and screams for the charge.

The ten or so Guards remaining form up into a wedge, slamming through the opening she's made in the enemy line. With her at their head, they hurl themselves down the throat of the enemy. S_traight for the heart, _she thinks. _I erred, not tearing it out when I had the chance_.

She pushes herself for every ounce of speed, weaving between levianths who break ranks and run in the face of her Guard. As she nears the enemy commander, a foolhardy (or unlucky) enemy steps into her path, launching its hook-and-chain in an attempt to stop her headlong charge. Dodging the slow attack with contempt, she dives under the levianth's right arm with a flick of her tail and takes both limbs on that side. Pushing off her foe's crippled bulk for additional speed, she sees the black-armored figure shed one vambrace and cut deep into his arm with a runed dagger. Blood stains the water red, and he raises his arm as she cries out the command to scatter–

This time, the tear in the world is slower in coming. Most of her forces are already split up, pursuing the fleeing remnants of the marauding force, but a few of them are still hot on her heels. As they dart away in different directions, she crouches low (his arm tracks her movement) and waits as

_The veil tears once more; The Lord of Dead Waters is angry–_

She springs diagonally forward as

_Bone-pale, as wide around as she is tall, Maelrawn's limb _cracks _through the water, leaving only death in its wake, but she sees it coming and is nowhere near the plane of its attack–_

Eluded for the second time, the tentacle retracts slowly and she takes the chance to dart close. Her blade slices deep into the rubbery flesh–

_Surprise. Pain. Anger. _

_HOW DARE YOU?_

An outraged scream slams into her, sending her spinning through the water. Maelrawn's limb stops its retreat and thrashes about, hooked suckers on its underside pulsating obscenely.

_YOU ARE NOTHING! KNOW YOUR PLACE – A WORM GRUBBING IN THE MUD HAS NO RIGHT TO TOUCH ME._

The rip in the water _bulges_ outward, countless more tentacles pushing against the tear in the veil. She can _feel_ the crushing pressure of the Old One's malice; she can _taste_ the bitter sharpness of its hate. But a mixture of exultation and anger and sheer _purpose_ courses through her, and in a moment of perfect clarity she knows: _I was born for this._ She stops her tumble with a flick of her tail and throws herself forward, a wordless shout of defiance on her lips. Maelrawn's wounded limb draws itself back in preparation, like a snake about to strike.

The world slows down, water turning to syrup. She sees the ragged shimmering around the edges of the tear; sees the black-armored commander shudder and go down to one knee, a cloud of blood exploding from his hand. She knows what she has to do.

The tentacle spears through the water just as she enters its range, but she contorts every muscle in her body and twists aside just in time. Then she lunges – not for the base of the limb, not for the opening in the veil, but for the figure kneeling just behind. _Maelrawn cannot reach me here, _she thinks. _It is over._

The commander staggers to his feet, grim determination in his stance. The dagger falls from his fingers as his uninjured hand whips to his scabbard, but he is not nearly fast enough. She collides with him, knocking him off-balance, and drives three feet of enchanted steel into his brain as he falls.

The enemy's remaining morale dies with their commander. Her comrades slaughter levianths in droves around the Vault's only exit, killing as fast as they can thrust their spears into the huddled mass of flesh. Cries for mercy mingle with the screams of the dying, but the Guard is trained well. There is no mercy to be had, here.

In mere moments, nothing within the Vault draws breath save her and her Guard. _It is done,_ she thinks, heaving a sigh of relief._ We have prevailed_.

Yet there is no celebration, no triumphant roar or jubilant cry rippling through the water. Nine-tenths of her comrades lie fallen amongst the mountains of slain levianths, a loss made no less crippling by the knowledge that their places will be taken within a week, ranks swelled by a flood of new and eager recruits.

_How many times must this happen?_ She asks herself, sorrow in her heart and bitterness on her tongue. _Again and again the levianths threaten our cities. Again and again we beat them back – and for what? For a new generation of cold-eyed youths, suddenly bereft of mothers or fathers, anger and hate running through their veins…_

"No more," she vows. "Never again."


	2. Disgrace (Siren)

DISGRACE

The orange sea fades slowly to black, and she knows her time is almost up. She has given no orders since the discovery of the chalice's absence, but her Guard has organized itself into squads and scoured the city. Yet, for all their efforts, the chalice has not been found. Now night approaches.

The last patrol takes its dejected place on the parade square and her heart sinks, a prayer dying on her lips as cold reality hits her. There is nothing anyone can do now – it has been three days since the battle. Three days of searching, three days of praying. Three days of fear.

_The chalice is long gone from the city. My fate is sealed, _she thinks. _There is no need for searching or praying any more_.

The fear remains.

She puts her blades down gently, like a brood-mother puts an infant in its cradle, and thinks of the uncharted Doldrums: the warm seas where uncountable levianths live and die in their crude cities, the stagnant waters from which none of her kind have ever returned alive. Scattered rumors by stealthier and more fortunate mer-folk speak of captured Slithereen working as slaves, or sacrificed in unholy rites to Maelrawn.

_These blades have done everything that was asked of them,_ she thinks, _unlike me. So now they go to the Vaults to wait for their next bearer. Now I go to my doom._

She unbuckles her armor, letting it fall slowly to the floor, and thinks of her family. Her parents are past their prime, and her stipend as commander of the Guard is– _was_, she corrects herself – a large part of their finances. _What will happen to them when I am dead?_ She imagines them begging on the streets, pride at her accomplishments souring into shared disgrace for her crime.

_Mother, Father, I apologize,_ she whispers. _Your daughter has failed you._

She lifts her helm from her head, turning away from her– _the_ assembled Guard, and thinks of him. He is far away, patrolling the deeps, and she will probably be gone before he returns. She wishes he were by her side, so she can see him one more time.

"Would he even want to see me?" She wonders aloud. "Perhaps this is for the better."

She doesn't know if she can bear to see the disappointment in his eyes. Her shaking hands clench into fists. The helm hits the stone with a soft _clunk_.

She thinks of him and the tears come at last.

~~a~~

She forces herself to be calm when four Guards approach her with a pair of heavy manacles. She lowers herself before them and extends trembling hands surfaceward, and the _click_ of the cold metal is the only sound in the square. It rings impossibly loud in her ears.

Only now, bound beyond any reasonable hope of escape, does the thought of making a break for it cross her mind. _No, _she thinks quickly, gripped by the fear (irrational, she knows, but no less real) that someone is listening to her thoughts. _I have broken my oath once. I will not break it again._

She tells it to herself again and again, willing it to be true.

The Guards take her to a small nondescript building just outside the gates, where a masked enforcer applies a warmed iron to her scales. It is over quickly, her markings dissipating into the water like a kraken's ink-cloud. Then the enforcer begins unfastening a bell (_a gift from_ **_him_**_!_) from her fins and she speaks up in protest for the first time.

He – she can tell once he speaks – is sympathetic but unyielding; she is guilty until proven innocent, and the law is the law. She considers begging but quickly dismisses the idea. It will not make a difference.

~~a~~

Passers-by stop and stare by the light of the glow-lamps as she is led to the Elders. There are no unkind words; no jeers or hurled insults. Every member of the crowd knows who she is and what she has done in defense of their city.

She keeps her head down the entire way. Locking eyes with her parents would undo her.

~~a~~

The Elders disagree and discuss and debate; the sentence is banishment until the chalice is returned. It is just as she has been expecting, yet her veins still turn to ice when she hears the verdict. She struggles to breathe as she is led out of the hall.

Many are reluctant to see her leave in disgrace, but the law is the law.

~~a~~

On her way back to her living quarters, one of the four escorting Guards tells her that her parents will be fed and sheltered. She stays silent for a moment, then smiles with some effort and thanks him.

~~a~~

She enters the room – _their_ room – and is alone at last; the Guards will return at dawn. She tries and fails to choke back a sob, and begins to pack.


	3. No Slithereen May Fail (Slardar)

NO SLITHEREEN MAY FAIL

The crowd parts before him as he pushes himself onward, tail churning through the water. The Guards at the gate snap to attention and the heavy iron aperture widens with the grinding of metal. He does not wait for it to open fully, instead launching himself through the gap as soon as it is wide enough for him to enter.

He doesn't have much time.

His anger is fiercer than it has ever been (even in the heat of battle) when he returns to their quarters in the Guard barracks, but it disappears the moment he pushes the door open (it is unlocked) and catches sight of her. In its place comes despair.

_Abyss take me. It is true._

She has been stripped of her gilded plate and inlaid blades; the swords and armor of the lowliest guard adorn her now. Her ink-markings, displaying her status as a citizen of the Sunken Cities and commander of a hundred of her fellows, have been scalded off her scales. The bells (a gift from him, when he first brushed fins with her and felt his heart nearly burst from his chest as she returned the gesture) are gone, and he feels their loss most keenly of all.

The anger returns, stronger than before. _All this for one chalice! _She spins around, surprise on her face. It seems he's not managed to keep his thoughts to himself.

Her surprise quickly turns to sorrow. "Yes," she says. "One chalice was missing." Her voice, clear and high, is as enchanting as always, and for a moment he nearly forgets why he's here.

Then he remembers, and words he's been putting together for the entirety of his journey burst out. _It doesn't matter that she and her Guard were taken by surprise, yet turned back nearly ten times their number of marauders? It doesn't matter that she slew the enemy commander and his retinue, and broke the Black Standard for the first time in a hundred years? If none of this matters, perhaps… _

The Compulsion floods his body. Every nerve in his body tingles.

Be fruitful. Multiply. Keep the oceans safe, cleanse the depths and shallows alike of all who the Old Ones deem unnecessary. And above all…

She completes his thoughts, saying those damnable four words. "It is how it is, lover mine," she goes on. "I am sorry." The agony on her face is clear, but he can also see the acceptance beneath. And that scares him the most.

He struggles against the Compulsion with all his will, and he can move again. _Maybe the vow shouldn't matter. If he can defy the Compulsion, so can she. They can…_

She shakes her head slowly.

_It's a suicide mission, the quest they're sending her on – the levianths will tear her apart. She doesn't have to do this. They can head for shallower waters. He has contacts in every city under the waves; he has money and identities prepared for situations like these. They can disappear; leave this all behind. They can still be together. Please!_

She presses herself against him in a motion too quick for his eyes to follow – some of the Guard swear she is as fast as a riptide. He has seen her in battle; they are wrong.

She is faster.

They touch fins, the act as natural as breathing. "I cannot," She says. She calls him by his birth name – the name given to him by his brood-mother while he rested in the red warmth of his egg, not the one he chose for himself upon reaching maturity – and asks that he understand her decision.

"It is not about the Compulsion – I learnt to defy it long ago," she says, a hint of the old fire surfacing in her eyes. He is unsurprised; her will has always been the stronger. "It is about honor and duty. This is who I am, and this is what I must do."

_What honor and duty lie in serving the whims of those who have not woken in an age? Is your honor more important than me? Is your duty more important than what we have built together? _

He is careful not to say these thoughts out loud, for the asking and the answering of his questions will lead only to hurt. Both his and hers.

He knows her too well.

Instead, he wraps his arms around her waist and holds her tight. She tilts her head and bites his lip softly, and for a time there is nothing else in the world but him and her.

~~a~~

He doesn't know what to say as she unwinds herself from him. He strains his ears to hear her humming while she packs. He watches her with his famed tracker's eyes, trying to capture every moment they have left together. _It's not fair_, he thinks. _We should have had more time. We should have had a lifetime._

As she dons her armor and prepares to leave, a thought strikes him. _Maybe we can both go and seek the chalice together. _He puts the idea forth, and she smiles sadly. "The Guard needs you here. You are in command now, and if you leave with me you leave them vulnerable."

_Locating and grooming a replacement will take a year. Maybe two._ He says as much and she turns away, hiding her face.

"I'll be back by then," she says with absolute certainty. "Keep the Guard in shape until I return, you hear me?" Her voice trembles. "That's an–That's my last order to you."

He is absolutely certain that she's lying. O_ne lost chalice in an infinite ocean? It might not even _be_ in the ocean any more. The land-dwellers' hunger for the treasures of the deep is insatiable._

Somehow, she senses his doubt without looking. "I, too, have my contacts. It will take time, but everything leaves a trail, and a determined enough tracker can pick it up." She turns back to him and smiles faintly. The sight breaks his heart. "You of all people should know that, yes?"

He nods.

"Well then!" She claps her hands together, and her smile gains strength while losing all sincerity. "The trail grows fainter by the second, and I'm afraid you'll only hinder my packing. May the seas be calm and the currents favorable." She offers the traditional parting words.

He tries to say something in return, but the words clump together in his throat. He raises a hand in farewell and turns to leave. He's almost at the door when she cries out, almost desperately:

"Wait!"

He stops and turns again.

"This is selfish of me, but it would mean everything to me if you told me one last time that you– that–" She cuts herself off. "I have no right! I am sorry, so very sorry to have failed you…" Her voice breaks, and she buries her head in her hands. He surges forward, but she halts him with an outstretched arm.

"If you stay, I will lose what little resolve I have left. Please, leave me."

_Would that be so bad?_ He considers going against her wishes – considers making another plea for her to change her mind, considers going to the elders to see if there's anything they can do about her vow, considers pushing her arm aside and grabbing her and never letting go–

She shakes her head. She knows him too well. So he says what he thinks she wants him to, then heads for the door.

Four Guards – her erstwhile subordinates – are waiting outside with a pair of manacles. They cast him a worried glance, probably in fear that he will attack.

He does not. What would be the point? If she had uttered even a single reluctant word or given him the slightest inclination that she wanted to escape, he would stain the Sunken Cities red for her. He may not have her speed, but his strength has no equal in these shallows.

But she didn't. So he pushes past them and heads for the city exit.

From the room behind him, he thinks he can hear singing.


	4. New Blood (Slardar)

NEW BLOOD

He opens his eyes in bed, head pounding painfully in time with his heart. The last thing he recalls from the previous night is entering a drinking establishment, and he puts two and two together with mild annoyance. _Why did I do that?_ He wonders. _She will be upset. Our first day together in weeks just got off to a horrible start._

Getting up, he prepares breakfast for two before remembering that she is

_Gone forever, tracking down a lost chalice in the Doldrums, and you couldn't do anything about it–_

He closes his eyes and stands very still, as if a single movement would cause him to shatter (_it might_). After an eternity, he sighs and returns half the food to the pantry.

The sun's rays flicker and dance in the street outside. It is only morning.

~a~

As he heads to the training halls, he realizes that all eyes will be on him. The sudden exit of their commander has left the Guard unsettled, and what he had with _her_ hadn't exactly been discreet–

He takes a deep breath as his thoughts cut off abruptly. _Abyss,_ he whispers._ I hope it'll get less painful._ For a brief, traitorous moment, he wonders if memories of– _if these memories, _he corrects himself – will ever lose their edge. He wonders if it'd be better to just forget–

_No. _He clamps down on the thought with all his will. _I would sooner die than forget._ He thinks for a moment. _In a way, then, the pain isn't that bad._

~a~

The assembled Guard turn as one to face him as he enters. One of the surviving captains approaches apprehensively, reports to him and asks for permission to continue. He grants it with a wave of his hand, and they resume their drills. Vaguely, he remembers _her_– remembers her planning to inspect them today.

He has something else in mind. "Captain," he says, and the captain snaps to attention. "Who are the best fighters in this room?"

~a~

Outside the hall, he sizes up the twenty best fighters in the Guard. Most of them are veterans, with countless scars to show for their long histories with violence, and they remain a formidable sight even with practice weapons in their hands.

He raises his fists. "Which one of you wants to go first?" He asks, and they exchange glances. Very few of them have seen him in combat – most of his assignments are solitary patrols of the Abyss, too deep for their kind to go – but they have heard stories. The youngest-looking member comes forth, determination clear in her eyes.

He beats her in an instant, slipping under her guard and slamming her into the stone floor.

"Who's next?" He asks. They exchange glances again. Every one of them is fast, strong, skilled and battle-hardened to an impressive degree, but their primary Purpose is civilization – their dexterous hands and nimble fingers are clear evidence. He was born to fight and kill.

He throws himself into combat again and again with reckless abandon, and for a while there is nothing but the rush of adrenaline as the world simplifies itself into defense, counterattack, attack. Then it is over –_ already? _He thinks – and as the fatigue begins to set in he can feel the pain in his heart resurface.

Disappointed (_unfairly,_ he knows), he mutters a dismissal and the fighters limp back into the hall. _Four more hours before I can return sleep,_ he thinks. _Far too long before I can forget again._

A movement in the corner of his eye catches his attention, and he turns to see a lone Guardswoman – the one he defeated at the beginning. While the other nineteen fighters fell somewhere between bemusement and resignation, she is curious.

"Where'd you learn to fight like that?" She asks, then realizes her failure to address him by his rank. "Um. Sir."

_The egg, _he thinks. _I learned to fight in the egg, and for years afterward I fought for my life until I managed to escape that black hell. _He doesn't say that, though. Instead, he says: "I… had a rough childhood."

She stifles an incredulous laugh before growing serious. "Can you teach me?" The words come out in a rush.

He grins. _Perhaps this won't be all bad, after all._


	5. Song of War (Guardswoman)

SONG OF WAR

She knows she has a long way to go before she can even stand a chance against him. The Commander's propensity for combat is no myth, no mere speculation whispered over the long tables in the dining hall. Her earlier bout (_Our bouts,_ she corrects herself. _There were nineteen others_) with him has shown her that, and she has little doubt that the murmurs at dinner were far better-substantiated than they have been in a long time (_Not that I'd know, though,_ she thinks. _I haven't eaten yet)._

_Still_, she thinks, _I almost beat him a few times. Almost._ In the rational part of her mind, she is aware that he's holding back, that even the overwhelming speed and strength he used against her in their first fight may not be everything he has to offer, but there's this _feeling_ that if she just tries a little harder, if she had just moved that little bit more to the side, she could have had him.

She circles him in the dying light (their fifth bout), looking for an opening. He does the same, and suddenly there is a blur of motion (her body moves instinctively, but he anticipates her counter and works around it) and his hands are on her wrists, his teeth closing with infinite gentleness around her neck.

She goes limp in surrender, and he releases her. "Tell me, what did you do wrong there?" He asks.

She racks her brain. _I must have made some minute change_ _in my stance, something that left me vulnerable – maybe I chose the wrong counter, _she thinks. She says so, and he shakes his head.

"You did nothing wrong," he says. "I was just a little bit faster."

An angry noise bubbles up in her throat, and she holds it in. Her frustration must be showing on her face, though, because he makes a placating gesture and says, "I think that's it for today."

She sighs. _It would have been nice to win at least once, _she thinks. _Now I'll be up all night scrutinizing my losses._

The Commander frowns. "Actually," he says, "let's go again. One last round."

She loses again. But she comes close to winning – closer than ever before. And for the first time that evening, he gives her an encouraging grin and says: "You did good, kid. I almost had to get serious."

The smile on her face (_When did it get there? _She wonders later) lasts for the entirety of her journey back to her quarters. _Maybe, _she thinks, _I'll just chalk that last one up as a win. _

~a~

Three months rush by in an instant. They start with what the Commander calls the "higher arts" – the various stances and forms and body movements; the seemingly infinite set of strikes and counters. She learns how to counter the blade, the shield, the polearm and the hook (this takes quite a lot of time) and how to wield them (this takes even more). She learns how to win with humility, and how to lose with grace.

In her off-hours she joins the bodyguard squad assigned to an esteemed diplomat. The job is tedious and mundane, but she learns how to keep an eye out for the most innocuous of threats – every meal might hide poison, every servant a blade, every corner an assassin. The diplomat is every bit as good as the Commander says he is, if not better.

As the weeks go by, she finds herself developing a slight interest in the political machinations (_another word added to my arsenal, _she thinks wryly) of the Sunken Cities. Visiting dignitaries occasionally make small talk with her while waiting for their turn in the ambassadorial halls – while she finds these conversations to be overwhelming at first, they start being informative as she picks up more and more. When she mentions this to the Commander, he looks relieved and begins producing books and treaties from under his desk. "Read these in your free time," he says, and she immediately regrets her decision.

Three days later, a foreign diplomat sees the treaty she's carrying with her (she's stuck on the first one, being a slow reader; her busy schedule has not helped one bit) and asks her about it. She gathers her courage (_HE DOES THIS FOR A LIVING) _and offers her opinion (_why is there so much diplomatic frippery? It's obvious your side is screwing mine, no need to dress the issue up)_. The aged meranth laughs and claps her on the shoulder, quoting a complicated phrase about the virtues of frankness (she looks it up later. It wasn't an insult_,_ gods be praised).

She wonders what this has to do with her training, and the Commander quotes a complicated phrase about warriors needing to train their minds as well as their bodies (she looks it up later. He got it wrong).

~a~

The daily trainings get tougher. The fights are no longer instructive, where the Commander demonstrates a move and she attempts to incorporate it into their duel. Instead, he batters her from one end of the dueling circle to the other as she tries to keep up with him. She tries everything against him; pike, short spear, twin blades and the sword and shield (her favorite), but nothing works. There's no secret technique of his, no counter-move he's held back during their training. Analyzing her defeats while soaking her bruised body in the medicinal baths, she invariably comes to the same conclusion: he is leagues ahead of her in speed and experience.

_That's good, though,_ she thinks. _At least_ _I match him in technical skill now. I just need time to spar and train myself._

Then one morning she enters the training hall and everything is different.

"You've learned enough," the Commander says, as two armored guards circle her on either side. "Time to put everything into practice. These two will stop either when they are beaten into submission or you are unconscious."

There's a moment of unbridled panic when they leap to the attack, training spears weaving, then she's parrying desperately, trying to stay within the carved markings on the training floor while keeping both opponents in front of her. A solid blow forces her out of the dueling ring (_another loss for me, then_) and relief floods her body. She readies herself to snap at the Commander (_this is all happening too fast, I wasn't ready for two-on-one_) when her opponents come at her again.

"Were you listening just now?" The Commander says. There is no warmth in his eyes, no indication he will call them off. No mercy. "They will only stop when they're down or you are."

_Was the stern but kind teacher ever there in the first place? _She wonders, giving ground as she looks for an opportunity. A spear slips under her guard in her moment of distraction, slamming the breath out of her body.

She staggers and they are inside her guard, raining blows down onto her armor. She tries to fend them off, parrying and blocking with her sword and shield and armored tail but they're in too close and something inside her cracks and _she can't block everything and they're going to kill her and_

and

And something that has been sleeping deep within her roars to life, screaming a song of battle as old as the seas themselves. The world crawls to a halt, crystallizing into a perfect training diagram of range and speed and angles of attack. She knows what she must do.

Then the world returns to normal (_not completely normal, _she realizes, _something's changed. It all seems so simple now_). She deflects one guard's spear into the other's, giving her just enough time to _get in close, sword is useless at this range, drop it and HIT HIM IN THE CHIN and he'll let go of __**his**__ spear, one more punch in the stomach and grab it, pull the other one off-balance with my tail and turn and RAM THE SPEAR HOME–_

Both her attackers sink slowly to the floor, groaning in pain. The spear drops from nerveless fingers, and she is out cold before her body joins theirs on the stone.

~a~

She wakes up in the cool darkness of the medical wing and wishes she hadn't. It hurts to breathe, and she is sore and aching in places she didn't even know she had. She opens her eyes with a groan and the Commander is looming over her, concern on his face.

"Gods below," she mumbles, "everything hurts. _Everything._ I hate you so much."

"You have every right to be angry," he says. "I went too far."

"I'm alive, at least." She coughs, and a jolt of pain shoots through her chest. She winces in pain, and sees guilt in his expression. "Relax, boss, I'll be all right."

"I… that's good." He backs off as she levers herself into a sitting position. "Your two training partners are fine, by the way – just a little shaken up."

"Great," she says, relief flooding her body. _If I'd killed them–_

The Commander goes on: "I've assigned someone else to the diplomat's squad, so don't worry about missing work."

She grins despite herself. "A night off? Finally! I wonder what I should do."

"There are two hours till sunrise," the Commander says, and she tries in vain to hold back an obscenity. "You were… out for a long time."

"Gods. What _happened_ to me?" She runs her hands over her body, checking for injuries. Her body is a mass of bruises and a cracked rib causes significant discomfort when she presses down on her chest, but nothing else is broken. _I shouldn't have blacked out from this, _she thinks. _At least not for seven hours._

"What you did back there…" he says. "It tends to be mentally draining. Especially the first time."

"_Tends to_? _The first time?_" She asks, incredulous. "This has happened before?"

"Twice. I experienced it in my infancy, and much later on–" he cuts off, a pained expression on his face. "The… previous commander of the Guard."

She raises an eyebrow. He has never once spoken of _her_.

He lets out a heavy-sounding sigh. "I'm grooming you as my successor so I can leave the city. It was… a promise to her."

"I figured out the first part, but it's been," she tilts her head and counts the months, "a quarter-year now?"

He nods, but doesn't say anything.

"You know better than me. The chances are…" she lets the sentence trail off.

"There's still a chance," he replies. "That's all that matters to me."

She nods. "It's your decision, boss. I'll respect it no matter what."

"Good," he says. "Now, I suppose you have some questions about what happened back in the training hall."

She considers a few questions, but one stands foremost in her mind. "How can I do that again?"

The Commander smiles. "That's the spirit."


End file.
